Gaming machines which provide players awards in primary or base games are well known. Gaming machines generally require the player to place or make a wager to activate the primary or base game. In many of these gaming machines, the award is based on the player obtaining a winning symbol or symbol combination and on the amount of the wager (i.e., the higher the wager, the higher the award). Symbols or symbol combinations which are less likely to occur usually provide higher awards.
In such known gaming machines, the amount of the wager made on the base game by the player may vary. For instance, the gaming machine may enable the player to wager a minimum number of credits, such as one credit (e.g., one cent, nickel, dime, quarter or dollar) up to a maximum number of credits, such as five credits. This wager may be made by the player a single time or multiple times in a single play of the primary game. For instance, a slot game may have one or more paylines and the slot game enables the player to make a wager on each payline in a single play of the primary game. Slot games with 1, 3, 5, 9, 15 and 25 lines are widely commercially available. Thus, it is known that a gaming machine, such as a slot game, enables players to make wagers of substantially different amounts on each play of the primary or base game ranging, for example, from one credit up to 125 credits (e.g., five credits on each of 25 separate paylines). This is also true for other wagering games, such as video draw poker, where players can wager one or more credits on each hand and where multiple hands can be played simultaneously. It should be appreciated that different players play at substantially different wagering amounts or levels and at substantially different rates of play.
Secondary or bonus games are also known in gaming machines. These secondary or bonus games usually provide an additional award to the player. Secondary or bonus games usually do not require an additional wager by the player to be activated. Secondary or bonus games are generally activated or triggered upon an occurrence of a designated triggering symbol or triggering symbol combination in the primary or base game of the gaming machine. For instance, a bonus symbol occurring on a payline on the third reel of a three reel slot machine may trigger the secondary bonus game on that gaming device. Part of the enjoyment and excitement of playing certain gaming machines is the occurrence or triggering of the secondary or bonus game (even before the player knows how much the bonus award will be). In other words, obtaining a bonus event and a bonus award in the bonus event is part of the enjoyment and excitement for players.
Progressive awards associated with gaming machines are also known. In one form, a progressive award or progressive pool is an award amount which includes an initial amount funded by a casino and an additional amount funded through a portion of each wager made on the progressive gaming machine. For example, 0.1% of each wager placed on the primary game of the gaming machine may be allocated to the progressive award or progressive award fund or pool. The progressive award grows in value as more players play the gaming machine and more portions of the players' wagers are allocated to the progressive award. When a player obtains a winning symbol or symbol combination associated with the progressive award, the accumulated progressive award is provided to the player. After the progressive award is provided to the player, the amount of the next progressive award is reset to the initial value and a portion of each subsequent wager is allocated to the next progressive award.
A progressive award may be associated with or otherwise dedicated to a single or stand-alone gaming machine. Alternatively, a progressive award may be associated with or otherwise dedicated to multiple gaming machines which each contribute a portion of wagers placed at such gaming machine(s) to the progressive award. The multiple gaming machines may be in the same bank of gaming machines, in the same casino or gaming establishment (usually through a local area network (“LAN”)) or in two or more different casinos or gaming establishments (usually through a wide area network (“WAN”)). Such progressive awards are played for by one or more gaming devices in the same gaming establishment sometimes called local area progressives (“LAP”) and such progressive awards played for by a plurality of gaming devices at a plurality of different gaming establishments are sometimes called wide area progressives (“WAP”). Moreover, a gaming machine or bank of gaming machines may be simultaneously associated with a plurality of progressive awards. In these multi-level progressive (“MLP”) configurations, a plurality of progressive awards start at different award or value levels, such as $10, $100, $1000 and $10,000 and each individually increment or increase until provided to a player. Upon a suitable triggering event at one of more of the gaming devices associated with the MLP, one or more of the progressive awards which form the MLP are provided to one or more of the players at such gaming devices.
Known progressive systems are set up such that each stand alone gaming device associated with a designated progressive award (or each bank of gaming machines associated with a designated progressive award) has its own separate progressive controller which tracks and maintains the designated progressive award. In one known method or model of tracking and maintaining a progressive award, the gaming device itself keeps track of the progressive metering (i.e., how much of a wager placed to allocate to a designated progressive award). In this method, the gaming device does not communicate with a progressive server, but functions as a stand-alone gaming system. Such a method provides limited opportunities for a progressive award to increment to relatively large award levels because the gaming device is only accounting for wagers placed at that gaming device.
Another known method of tracking and maintaining a progressive award includes the gaming device sending coin-in information to a designated progressive controller and the designated progressive controller using this information to track or maintain the progressive award In different known methods, the gaming machine sends either a delta number (i.e., a change since the last coin-in sent) to the designated progressive controller or the actual current coin-in to the designated progressive controller (wherein the central server determines any change in the coin-in by comparing the actual current coin-in to any previous coin-in). Utilizing this communicated information (in either form), the designated progressive controller determines the change in coin-in from the previous communication with the gaming device and sets each progressive level to be incremented an appropriate amount.
Another known method of tracking and maintaining a progressive award includes a gaming device sending a pulse to a designated progressive controller for each wager or coin placed at the gaming device. In this known method, each gaming device is associated with its own progressive tracking meter and the progressive controller is not aware of any of the information tracked by the gaming device's progressive tracking meter (i.e., the progressive controller only recognizes a pulse sent from the gaming device.) It should be appreciated that this method has some faults in how the pulse is sent, the possibility for a missed pulse, or the possibility of picking up an extra pulse. Moreover, this method requires a pulse or message to be sent to the designated progressive controller with every single coin-in.
It should be appreciated that these known methods for progressive implementation require multiple progressive tracking meters for each game offered, each denomination and/or each progressive award associated with each gaming machine. These setups require a great number of messages communicated between each gaming device and the progressive controller, wherein the size of each of these messages is substantial. These known methods also require a designated progressive controller to keep track of all progressive award data sent from each gaming machine. This constant messaging is costly and presents increased chances of one or more errors in the accounting to occur. These methods also provide no known method to reconcile when one or more of these situations occur, nor do they provide a means to determine the occurrence of any errors in accounting.
It should be further appreciated that known progressive gaming systems use a method of gaming device identification (assigned to paytable combinations), ProgLevel and ProgID to hook into the gaming system. While this information is useful to the maintenance of the progressive award, it lacks other information pertinent to running and implementing a progressive award. That is, without the sending of odds and combinations, an operator must access a PAR sheet to determine which games of which gaming devices to associate with which progressive awards. Such methods are often timely and costly because the gaming system operator may have a substantially large list of possible progressive awards, and odds of different outcomes occurring and must manually determine which progressive awards to assign to which games of which gaming devices (along with how to hook the gaming system together).
In known progressive award systems, each gaming machine associated with a designated progressive award is proximate to or otherwise associated with the progressive controller which maintains the designated progressive award, (such that the gaming machine and the progressive controller communicate with each other to establish the progressive award). Currently, if a gaming system operator desires to add or otherwise associate another gaming machine (or bank of gaming machines) with the designated progressive award, the gaming system operator must cause the additional gaming machine (or additional bank of gaming machines) to communicate with the designated progressive controller. This operation is costly and is limited by the capacity of the hardware and/or software of the progressive controller which is usually only designed to host a set number of stand-alone gaming machines (or a set number of banks of gaming machines). This greatly limits the gaming system operator due to the cost of adding gaming machines to any existing progressive controllers. Moreover, because a gaming device must be connected to a specific progressive controller and each progressive controller is capable of being connected to only a certain or limited number of gaming machines, players only have the option to play for a specific progressive award if they are able to place wagers on a gaming device associated that such specific progressive award.
While this setup provides a commercially viable progressive system, it significantly lacks in such areas as adaptability, configurability, and the overall ability to be modified. That is, as the setup of known progressive controllers requires each of the gaming machines to be either physically tied to or in RF communication with a progressive controller, gaming machines are limited to interaction with that specific progressive controller. This setup limits these gaming machines to the current format of one base game and one progressive pool.
As described above, a casino may include thousands of gaming devices. Hundreds of these gaming devices may each be associated with a progressive award specific to that gaming device. Moreover, a plurality of these gaming devices may each be associated with more than one progressive award (e.g., an MLP) which are each specific to that gaming device. These progressive awards may be associated with individual gaming devices, pluralities of gaming devices located at banks within the casino or pluralities of linked gaming devices set up in a WAP configuration. As these progressive awards start at different levels, such as from $1 to $1,000,000, different players at different gaming devices want to be eligible for one or more of these progressive awards which are different than the progressive award associated with the player's currently played gaming device. However, in known progressive systems, a fixed relationship exists between each gaming device and the progressive award(s) associated with that gaming device. A player at a specific gaming device may only play for and obtain the dedicated progressive award associated with that specifically played gaming device. In other words, the player may not play for and obtain any other progressive award(s) (beyond the progressive award(s) associated with the player's currently played gaming device) because such other progressive award(s) are dedicated to or otherwise associated with gaming devices not currently played by the player. Thus, even though a casino may include hundreds of gaming devices which are each associated with one or more dedicated progressive awards (i.e., players in a casino witness hundreds or thousands of incrementing progressive awards at different award levels or values), a player may only play for and obtain the progressive award(s) associated with their currently played gaming device (or bank of gaming devices). Accordingly, a need exists to provide a gaming system wherein a player may obtain one or more progressive awards different than the progressive award(s) associated with the player's currently played gaming device.
In one known gaming device or gaming system, a progressive award is formed by allocating a percentage of a player's wager into the player's own progressive award or pool (i.e., a personal progressive award) and subsequently returning the player's progressive award or pool to the player upon the occurrence of an event. However, these personal progressive awards take a long time to increase to a desirable amount because only one player is contributing to it. This serves to devolitize the game played because each game is simply returning a percentage of a player's wager back to them at some interval (in the form of a progressive award).
Moreover, known progressive award gaming systems may be perceived as not being fair because many players contribute to the building of the progressive award, yet only one person wins the progressive award. This is deflating to many of the players who contribute to the progressive award but do not win such progressive awards. Moreover, these players commonly suffer from jackpot fatigue when the value of the progressive award drops to an undesirable level after a hit, which in turn keeps players from wanting to play for the progressive award until it builds back to a higher level.
Mystery bonus awards are also known. For instance, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,655,961, 5,702,304, 5,741,183, 5,752,882, 5,820,459, 5,836,817, 5,876,284, 6,162,122, 6,257,981, 6,319,125, 6,364,768, 6,375,569, 6,375,567, RE37,885 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,565,434 describe mystery bonus awards and certain methods for providing such awards to players. These patents also describe certain methods for determining which gaming machines will provide the awards to players. These patents further describe methods for a central server to determine which gaming machines will provide the bonus awards and the amount of the bonus awards.
PCT Application No. PCT/AU98/00525, entitled “Slot Machine Game And System With Improved Jackpot Feature” discloses a jackpot awardable to a plurality of gaming machines connected to a network. Upon each play of each gaming machine, a jackpot controller increments the value of the jackpot. Prior to each primary game, the gaming machine selects a random number from a range of numbers and during each primary game, the gaming machine allocates the first N numbers in the range, where N is the number of credits bet by the player in that primary game. At the end of the primary game, the randomly selected number is compared with the numbers allocated to the player and if a match occurs, that particular gaming machine is switched into a feature game mode in which a jackpot game is played for all or part of the incremental jackpot.
More specifically, for every game that is played, a random trigger value is selected in the preprogrammed range as determined from an average number of credits wagered per jackpot. When the primary game is commenced, it is then reported to the controller, which allocates a contribution to the prize pool. Each game is also allotted numbers from the same number range from which the random number was selected, one number in the range being allotted for each credit bet such that the player's probability of being awarded the jackpot game is proportional to the bet. The previously selected random number is then used as a trigger value and compared with the values allotted to the player. If there is a match between the trigger value and the player values, the player is given an opportunity to play the jackpot game. Alternatively, a number is allocated which is equal to, or proportional to the number of credits bet in the respective primary game, the trigger value is compared with the single player value and a jackpot game awarded if the trigger value is less than or equal to the player value.
In one embodiment of the system disclosed in PCT Application No. PCT/AU98/00525, a prize is always awarded in the jackpot game. The jackpot game is used to determine the size of the prize to be awarded. The winning machine is then locked up and the controller awaits an indication that the prize has been paid before allowing the machine to be unlocked. The machine then returns to commence a new primary game. If the trigger value does not match, then there is no feature game awarded for that bought game and the machine returns to step and waits for the next game to commence.
PCT Application No. PCT/AU99/01059, entitled “Player Information Delivery” discloses a gaming console in which an animated character occasionally randomly appears and awards a player a variable random bonus prize. The occurrence of the animated character is weighted by the desired hit rate of the feature and is dependent upon the player's bet and may or may not be dependent upon the size and type of the player's bet. Additionally, the gaming console includes a bonus pool (funded by the player) and a random decision is made whether the contents of the bonus pool will be awarded in addition to any other win.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,241,608 B1 entitled “Progressive Wagering System” discloses a linked progressive wagering system that is capable of accepting wagers in different currencies and different denominations of the same currency. The system periodically computes each current prize value using the data acquired from each gaming device and displays the current prize value at each location where participating gaming devices are located (in the currency used at each particular location). This patent also discloses the system specifying a boundary criteria, such as a maximum value or an expiration date and time, for a progressive award prize. If a gaming device has not randomly generated a prize award event when the specified boundary criteria is met, a progressive award prize is forced by the system upon one or more randomly selected participating players.
There is a continuing need to provide new and different gaming machines and gaming systems as well as new and different ways to provide awards to players including bonus awards. There is also a continuing need to provide new and different linked or related gaming machines.